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I’ve heard historian Timothy Snyder a lot in the past several years thanks to his fantastic public speaking, captured in freely available videos and podcasts. Today, I’ve finally begun reading him. First up: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (Tim Duggan Books, 2017).

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Yellow poster with blue and black text showing a young woman in white with a blue cap reaching out from a blue triangle, symbol of War Work Council relief efforts. The text reads 'REMEMBER THE GIRL BEHIND THE MAN BEHIND THE GUN' and 'Y.W.C.A.' At the very bottom in small letters: 'WAR WORK COUNCIL'.

YWCA War Work Council poster, ca. 1917 (United States)

 

Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002707403

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Institute for the Study of War: “US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff uncritically amplified a number of Russian demands, claims, and justifications regarding the war in Ukraine during an interview on March 21.…” www.understandingwar.org…
#RussiaIsATerroristState #Disinformation #СлаваУкраїні

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Just arrived from Berlin to an empty Dulles airport in DC. Assumed because Heathrow outage. “No,” says my WashFlyer cabbie, the past month has been super slow. “Fewer tourists, fewer business people. This is not normal, believe me.” Says he’s looking for a new job because he needs to pay his bills.

– Thomas Rid on Bluesky, March 21, 2025

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I heard the term deadcatting for the first time today.1 It means employing a shocking distraction to pull peoples' eyes away from what matters. Why a dead cat? Imagine throwing one on a table at which people are engaged in a heated discussion. Their focus will be pulled to the cat instead of lingering on whatever difficulty is before them. This dead cat strategy can overlap with scapegoating and the politics of division, as when Trump claimed that Haitian immigrants were eating their neighbors' cats and dogs.2

  1. Jason Pack uses it on the Disorder podcast, late in ep. 107, March 18, 2025. ↩︎

  2. See Heather Digby Parton, “Donald Trump’s Dead Cat Strategy Puts the Pressure on JD Vance,” Salon, September 16, 2024. ↩︎

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It’s not just that both Putin and Trump lie, it is that they lie in the same way and for the same purpose—blatantly, to assert power over truth itself.

– Masha Gessen, quoted in Brooke Gladstone, The Trouble with Reality, (Workman Publishing, 2017), chap. 3.

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“If it’s good, let it be killed.” – Trump’s Insecure Ego

Example no. 100,001: “Is planting trees ‘DEI’? Trump administration cuts nationwide tree-planting effort” by Eva Tesfaye, www.npr.org/2025/03/21….

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Trump’s supporters, who felt increasingly anxious or displaced in the prevailing consensus reality, could see what was happening. But those of us who were relatively at ease—our field of vision was obstructed. So we scoffed and mocked as Trump put a half nelson choke hold on reality.

– Brooke Gladstone, The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time (Workman Publishing, 2017).

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Color print of a stylish African American woman with blue hair, a small hat, and blue accents on her clothing. Her partial shadow on the brown striped wallpaper is also blue.

"Girl with Blue Hair" by Blanche Grambs. Lithograph signed by artist, ca. 1935–43.

Works Progress Administration (WPA) Art Collection, NYPL Digital Collections, image id 5181000.

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The Trump administration is slashing the State Department’s annual human rights report — cutting sections about the rights of women, the disabled, the LGBTQ+ community and more.

The goal appears to be a far thinner report that meets the minimum standards required by the law, according to documents obtained by POLITICO, as well as a current and a former State Department official who were familiar with the plan.

– Nahal Toosi, Politico, March 19, 2025

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A lot of talk about the shadow library Libgen today in my socials because of Meta. In this context, Molly White has recommended an interesting open-access book: Joe Karaganis, ed., Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education (The MIT Press, 2018).

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Photograph of two women and a child exiting a building with pots hanging on the outside wall. Maybe this was a place the Hungarian woman was considering?

“Mexican miner’s wife and child are visited by another miner’s wife (Hungarian) who is interested in starting a maternal health clinic there. Scotts Run, Bertha Hill, West Virginia” by Marion Post Walcott for the Farm Security Administration, 1938. NYPL Digital Collections, image id 58749987.

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Carl T. Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington, has written an excellent thread about his and his colleagues' experience of the White House’s attack on U.S. science and education.

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Prices going up while the White House shrinks the economy. If stagflation is the goal, these people are geniuses.⛓️‍💥

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Gaullism, loosely defined, long struck me as a French eccentricity that simply was. Now Trump’s and Vance’s posturing places France’s view of itself in the world and vis-à-vis U.S. defense structures in a new light. Instead of peculiar, not to mention expensive, it appears to have been prudent.

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More animated satire by @Freeonis: “Oval Deception” (3 min.) at youtu.be…. Use the closed caption button (cc) for subtitles.🇺🇦

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Brilliant new set by Josh Johnson: “The Only Way to Survive a Recession” (43 min) youtu.be…. 📺

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Putin Playing Trump for a Fool Again

The 30-day partial cease fire that Putin and Trump agreed to is a one-sided joke.

Russia probably needs relief from strikes on its energy infrastructure more than Ukraine does because the former depends on energy to finance its war. Ukraine, at least, has made it through another winter, when attacks on its energy infrastructure hurt the worst. Moreover, its air defenses seem to be more effective than Russia’s.

The real kicker, though, are the accompanying demands and threats, which continue to assert Russia’s maximalist aim of destroying Ukrainian sovereignty by demanding it do nothing to improve its defense posture. Meanwhile, the White House and Kremlin “agreed to set up Russian and American expert groups to ‘resolve the war bilaterally,'” i.e., without Ukraine or the rest of Europe. Of course, the Kremlin issued yet another tired threat of “escalation.”

Will the White House side with Russia again, despite the Kremlin playing Trump for a fool? It wouldn’t surprise me, given that Trump has no advisors who will tell him what he needs to hear. I hope I’m wrong.

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The rivers are full to bursting with melted snow and ice where I live, but there’s still snow, especially at higher elevations, and I felt like sharing something fun.

Postcard: Color drawing of a woman on her belly on a sled headed downhill. Nearby are three women and two men seated on a long toboggan with a steering wheel headed downhill. They are all in fashionable woolens and sweaters, two with fur coats, etc. In the background are skiers, one fallen down, some horse drawn sleighs, and so on.

Postcard by Xavier Sander. Publisher: B.M., Paris. Early 20th century. Repository: John L. Monroe Collection, The Newberry Library, NL1267WV.

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“After Trump DEI Order, Navajo Code Talkers Disappear From Military Websites,” www.axios.com….

From 1942 to 1945, the Navajo code talkers were instrumental in every major Marine Corps operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

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A 1943 Photo of Welders for Women's History Month

Four African American women welders employed to work on the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver, kneeling and holding welding equipment. Bits of the port and shipyard are also visible, as are three men, two black and one white.

“Skilled women workers helped build SS George Washington Carver.” Photo by E. F. Joseph for the Office of War Information, Kaiser Shipyards, Richmond, California, ca. 1943.

With nearly 1,000 Negro women employed as burners, welders, scalers and in other capacities at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, Calif., women war workers played an important part in the construction of the Liberty Ship, SS George Washington Carver, launched on May 7, 1943. Welders Alivia Scott, Hattie Carpenter and Flossie Burtos await an opportunity to weld their first piece of steel on the ship.

Repository: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL Digital Collections, image id 1206635.

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Bare trees and melting snow. Looking downward toward a river, which is mot visible because of the fog-like evaporating snow.

The snow is both melting and evaporating into a fog.

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America hasn’t felt this upside down since I was a child in an internment camp.

– George Takei

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Seen in grocery store: Old guy prolly dependent on Social Security, etc., wearing a black windbreaker marked ICE. Maybe supposed to look cool or intimidating, like a big swastica, if you’re into that sort of thing, but it felt more like a big “I am an asshole” or “Kick me” sign.